CSU Means Nothing

CSU Craiova stands for Sports Club Universitatea Craiova. This was the initial name of the mother club which included athletics, football, handball, voleyball and bridge during communist regime in Romania. FCU left this big club and became Football Club Universitatea Craiova in 1990 and continued like this until 2011 when it was abusively destroyed by Romanian Football Federation. I explained in the previous posts how this could be possible. If you take a look at recently uncovered Platini-Blatter case and taking into account Mircea Sandu (former FRF president) was one of the biggest supporters of this corrupted couple it is easy to understand what a big Mafia our club had to deal with.

CSU just came in 2013 in Romanian football trying to replace the old FCU in fan's mind and in the official statistics. There were serious money quantities pumped in this project at the beginning but the managers made one mistake after another. The most important was they didn't knew the public in Craiova and the local habits. They tried to replace the old team with people without any connection with this city. They never had a real audience and, on a stadium which gathered 50,000 viewers in the past, CSU had at most 4000 people in tribunes.  In many games they played with only a couple of hundreds watching them. 

Today everything is a mess there. The main investor is in prison being accused of corruption. There are no more money involved in this project. The team lost the contact with the play-off places in the table and now is trying to resist but the last results are very bad. The managers tried to attract in their stuff old glories of Craiova's football, they had Cartu and Sandoi as trainers but this move wasn't a long term success. The City Hall of Craiova took part in this new club (having an old name) but they only made aggressive declarations and nothing really important for the football in Craiova. 

There is only one conclusion after all these facts: the City Hall doesn't matter, the old name CSU means nothing, the old glories of the club doesn't mean anything, money doesn't count in this equation. The only important are the fans of Universitatea Craiova and they can not be bullshited by politicians or people in key positions in Romanian Football Federation.

Romanian Football Federation Is Serious In Trouble

The Romanian Court of Appeals ruled today canceling of FRF's new statute which was voted in the summer of 2014 and the case was sent back for retrial in The Court Of Bucharest. 

This means the statute of 2014 can not be used anymore and all the decisions based on this statute will be canceled. Two major differences between the statute of 2011 and the statute of 2014 are: 

- In Romanian Football Federation (FRF) it is not allowed to be hired a person who got in prison or is involved in a criminal trial. This means some people should be fired there.

- No team can be promoted without an experience of minimum 3 years of existence. This rule is very normal because there are 4 football leagues in Romania. And according with this rule no team can promote but only one league per year. This means if will appear a football team someday, this team should start from the last football league and can play in the first football league - Liga I - no soon than 3 years after its establishing. 

According with this last change canceling, CSU - the new team in Craiova - is in impossibility to play football games in Romanian first league. They only spent 1 year in the second league and played in Liga I very next year. They started in the second football league instead of the last one, as normal. Let's see who will gonna pay for all these corruption facts.

Universitatea Craiova Died And Nobody Cares

February 25th 2014 was the last day "Universitatea" Craiova existed. Actually this is the last video regarding our football team. A boring winter day. A pale shadow of the squad which literally impressed Europe 30 years ago. 

Being relegated in the second league of Romanian football, "Universitatea" Craiova couldn't finish the championship. The main reason was a serious lack of founds. Actually in short time the management was forced to declare bankruptcy. This video show the players demanding their financial rights and complaining about training conditions. Craiova is a city for 250.000 inhabitants. People there is very bad organised and divided because their political views or financial interests. This matter of facts lead to no way out situation . The municipality observed all these defects and founded its own football team having the same name and symbols as the old one. FRF (Romanian Football Federation) suddenly adopted the new club and in this way something incredible happened: the old U Craiova played against the new U Craiova in an official competition... twice. Both games ended in the same way 0-0.

Today it exists the club of municipality only. It promoted in the first Romanian football league and they pretending they are the same club as the old one. Even the official documents show the evidence of 2 total different football teams, nobody recognizes this true fact. After a difficult start in the first season in first Romanian football league, CSU Craiova (the name of the new team) managed to play 14 consecutive games without losing. Many people wondered how was that possible. Anyhow, now they are playing their second season in Liga I and the situation in the table shows this is a mediocre squad. They are in the middle of the table trying hard to qualify for playoff. Two weeks ago, the owner of this club got in prison because of corruption being suspected of a fraud of 60 millions €. It is useless to mention CSU is not making any good result since then. 

On the other hand, FCU Craiova (the name of the old team) tried hard to solve the bankruptcy problem. This matter is in the lawyers hands now and the signs are very bad. Long processes, contradictory court solutions, many interests involved and a dead end for football players and the fans of this club. Practically 65 years of tradition must be buried and people is forced to accept the clone team as being their own. If you ever seen "Changing" directed by Angelina Jolie you can understand the situation of Universitatea Craiova's ultras.